There has been a rapid increase in the number of people living with HIV in Myanmar over the last decade, the majority of who are eligible for treatment. Alongside this increase has been an effort by the ministry of health to rapidly scale up provision of treatment in order to reduce HIV-related illnesses and deaths.

However, Myanmar has an ambitious national strategic goal of providing ART to 106,058 people by the end of 2016. The health system in Myanmar is already stretched, and to achieve this goal, innovation in ART delivery will be required in-order to ensure that ART is provided close to communities, without compromising quality.

Communicable diseases such as HIV, TB and malaria remain among the leading causes of illness, death and impoverishment in our region, and infection levels continue to rise in many settings and populations. Unless focused efforts are undertaken to build on the gains to date, communities that remain vulnerable to neglected tropical diseases such as leprosy, kala-azar and filariasis will continue to be left behind. This report focuses on the historic opportunity for the WHO South-East Asia Region to end the scourge of communicable diseases for good.

The report finds that prices of older HIV drugs continue to decline, while newer drugs remain largely priced out of reach. This is in large part because pharmaceutical corporations maintain monopolies that block price-lowering generic competition.

Today, the lowest available price for a quality-assured, World Health Organization-recommended first-line one-pill-a-day combination is US$100 per person per year (tenofovir/emtricitabine/efavirenz). This is a decrease of 26 per cent since MSF last recorded the lowest price for first-line treatment at US$136 in 2014. For a WHO-recommended second-line regimen, the lowest available price is now US$286 per person per year (zidovudine/lamivudine + atazanavir/ritonavir) – an 11 per cent decrease from US$322 two years ago.

This is the first-ever global report on treatment access to hepatitis C medicines. The report provides the information that countries and health authorities need to identify the appropriate HCV treatment, and procure it at affordable prices. The report uses the experience of several pioneering countries to demonstrate how barriers to treatment access can be overcome. It also provides information on the production of new hepatitis C drugs and generic versions worldwide, including where the drugs are registered, where the drugs are patented and where not, and what opportunities countries have under the license agreements that were signed by some companies as well as current pricing of all recommended DAAs, including by generic companies all over the world.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has become one of the biggest threats to global health and endangers other major priorities, such as human development. All around the world, many common infections are becoming resistant to the antimicrobial medicines used to treat them, resulting in longer illnesses and more deaths. At the same time, not enough new antimicrobial drugs, especially antibiotics, are being developed to replace older and increasingly ineffective ones.

Global leaders will meet at the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September 2016 to commit to fighting antimicrobial resistance together. This is only the fourth time in the history of the UN that a health topic is discussed at the General Assembly (HIV, noncommunicable diseases, and Ebola were the others). Heads of State and Heads of Delegations are expected to address the seriousness and scope of the situation and to agree on sustainable, multisectoral approaches to addressing antimicrobial resistance.

2015 confirmed a significant recent trend in the flagship WHO Model List of Essential Medicines with groundbreaking new treatments for hepatitis C and a variety of cancers included in the list despite their high prices. The list also included five new medicines for multidrug resistant tuberculosis (TB), among other updates. Traditionally considered a tool for developing countries to use as a guide for national medicines selection, the WHO Essential Medicines List is increasingly seen as a tool to increase access globally.

In 2013, viral hepatitis was a leading cause of death worldwide (1.46 million deaths, a toll higher than that from HIV, tuberculosis or malaria, and on the increase since 1990). More than 90% of this burden is due to the sequelae of infections with the hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV).

Prevention can reduce the rate of new infections, but the number of those already infected would remain high for a generation. In the absence of additional efforts, 19 million hepatitis-related deaths are anticipated from 2015 to 2030. Treatment now can prevent deaths in the short- and medium term.

Whether it’s the rising price of the EpiPen, or new outbreaks of diseases, like Ebola, Zika and yellow fever, the rising costs of health technologies and the lack of new tools to tackle health problems, like antimicrobial resistance, is a problem in rich and poor countries alike.

According to a High-Level Panel convened to advise the UN Secretary-General on improving access to medicines, the world must take bold new approaches to both health technology innovation and ensuring access so that all people can benefit from the medical advances that have dramatically improved the lives of millions around the world in the last century.